Parents end fight over remains

Agreement reached 16 months after Marine son killed in Iraq.

Agreement reached 16 months after Marine son killed in Iraq.

May 24, 2006

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) -- The feuding parents of Marine Lance Cpl. Allan Klein, who was killed in Iraq 16 months ago, finally have agreed on how to dispose of his remains, which have languished in a crypt in Roseville. The 34-year-old resident of Macomb County's Clinton Township died Jan. 26, 2005, along with 29 other Marine infantrymen and a Navy medic, in a helicopter crash near the Jordanian border. Mother Rae Oldaugh, of Roseville, Mich., sought to have him buried at the Great Lakes National Cemetery near Holly, while father Manfred Klein, of Monroe County, said he should be buried near a family farm in Sanilac County, near Croswell and north of Port Huron. The parents are divorced. Under the agreement, Klein's body will be cremated, with most of his ashes being spread at the farm and the rest going to his mother. A monument to Klein will go up at the military cemetery. "We had put this offer out there in the spirit of compromise and they chose to accept it," Daniel Shemke, Oldaugh's brother and lawyer, told The Detroit News. "The primary goal that I had was to get some sort of marker at Great Lakes." "It will honor him for his service to his country as a Marine, which I know he was so proud of doing," his mother told The Macomb Daily. A Defense Department rule gives the older of two parents of an unmarried service member the power to choose the burial site. But Allan Klein had designated Oldaugh, the younger of his parents, as next of kin. She filed suit in Macomb County, saying she had the right to select the burial site. The two sides had been scheduled to appear before Circuit Judge Diane M. Druzinski. Manfred Klein said last year that his son never specifically talked about what should happen if he died but did tell friends that he wanted to settle in the Croswell area. "He loved that area. His grandmother had a farm there and he spent a lot of time up there," the father said at the time. Oldaugh said she never expected the dispute to last so long.